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Election 2008 McCain National Security Politics

John McCain, Neoconservative

Neoconservatives extol the virtues of American hegemony and believe that other states will welcome U.S. leadership so long as it is exercised decisively. They attribute opposition to American dominance to deep-seated hostility to U.S. values (rather than anger at specific U.S. policies) and believe that enemies can be cowed by forceful demonstrations of American power. Thus, neoconservatives downplay diplomacy and compromise and routinely charge anyone who endorses it with advocating “appeasement.” To the neocons, every adversary is another Adolf Hitler and it is always 1938.

So saith Stephen M. Walt in The National Interest in the cleverly named “The Shattered Kristol Ball.”

The more I talk to people who support McCain, the more easily I forget that he is a neoconservative and a believer in American empire. Certainly, this paragraph describes John McCain’s foreign policy as well as it does George W. Bush’s.

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